Outlaw Road (A MC Romance) (13 page)

I could see her through my wobbling vision. Flora was pale as ivory.

Finally turning back to me, Roach kicked me in the ribs, growling, “You never could let things go, could you?”

My head was still swimming, but I was able to roll with the blow. It stung, but I'd been hit harder. On my hands and knees, I spotted the empty bottle of Jim Beam from last night. It had slid under a nearby cabinet.

“I'm a pacifist, man, I don't believe in violence,” I groaned the words out. “Nothing but good vibrations.”

“Yes, yes. Always with the fucking jokes. Well, who's laughing now, fuckhead!” Roach bent down to scream into my face, obviously venting some pent up rage. Then he stood back up, sliding a hand over his head, calming himself. He straightened out his vest before continuing his placation of Flora. “He's using you, dear girl. You're nothing but a poker chip to him. Expendable. Something to be spent.”

Curling her fists to her lips, she said, “Stop hurting him!” Her voice was fragile, unsure about the situation. “I don't understand. Ronin, why would you tell me you were letting me free, only to try and drag me off again?” Her eyes sought me out, wet and gigantic. “Was it a trick?”

She thought
I
was the liar, here? Maybe locking her up and claiming her story about Claudine was fake wasn't the best idea, after all. Between the three of us, including Flora, I was the only one in this damn room not actively trying to get her killed. And she was torn between believing me or siding with Roach.

It was depressing and funny all at once.

I heard the foyer door open, but it wasn't until they got in the kitchen that I realized only a pair of Knights had walked in. I'd heard three bikes pull up, so the third man must have stayed out to keep watch. Of the two inside, I only remembered one from the brothel. It was hard to forget the face of a man that had tried to kill you, especially when he walked in with an electric bone saw.

“Why didn't you just call them,” I asked, cocking my head at the Serbian and his lackey, “When I showed up, Roach?”

He snorted. “Because I had a good thing going before you fucking ruined it! The Knights paid me to feed the Veins with bad info, and the Veins paid me for the privilege of eating it. 'Another day.' Fuck you! I knew you were going to run. You forced me to pick a side.”

I spat a wad of blood at Roach's feet. “You'll roast for this, you traitorous piece of shit."

“Looked at a map lately, asshole?” he replied. “This is Knights' country, the Veins can't do shit to me here.”

I offered Roach a sadistic, bloody-toothed grin. “Well, lucky for us, I'm no longer in the Steel Veins.”

“Enough talk, ladies,” the Serbian cut in. “We got shit to do. Lewis, inside? Outside? You got plastic?”

From the growing worry on her face, I saw it fully start to dawn on Flora just how much trouble she was really in. These men were openly discussing how to best wrap her body in a way that wouldn't leak blood all over the place. “Plastic?” she whispered. “No, please, I won't make any trouble, I swear! I just want to be with my sister!”

They ignored her. Flora might as well have been yelling into the void.

“I think so,” Roach said. “I'll have to check, how much will you need? If you were to... guesstimate?”

The Serbian regarded Roach with exasperation, not looking forward to holding the man's hand through all of this. For all of his many faults, this would be Roach's first foray into actual murder. “Jesus Christ. Just bring her out back, Lewis. Find a spot with some grass that's still close enough to be hosed down.”

I cracked a smile at the Serbian, running my finger in a circle around my nose, pointing out the bandage he was wearing. The damage I'd inflicted on him was obvious. “That's a good look for you. The chicks must dig the hell out of it.”

The Serbian produced an awful, forced smile, then clocked me with a hard right cross. Even turning my head with it to lessen the blow, he still managed to ring my bell pretty good. A few more of those and I'd be relegated to only soft foods for a while; that was, if I survived at all.

Playing up the injuries, I slumped to the floor. I was already a little bloody from the pistol-whipping earlier, still nursing a kicking headache that was only getting worse, but otherwise, I was alright. It'd take more than that to put me down.

“Ronin!” Flora called out to me as Roach grabbed her and thrust the gun into her back.

Unfortunately, she was too far away, there wasn't much I could do for her. If only she'd run when she'd had the chance.

The Serbian whacked his partner on the shoulder and looked down at me. “Give me a hand with lover-boy here.”

Roach pushed Flora towards the back door, then hesitated at the threshold. Turning around, he asked, “When this is over, you're not going to leave them here, right?”

“The fuck do you think the bone saw is for?” The Serbian scowled.

Roach still didn't get it.

The big man spoke in a patronizing tone, he obviously wanted nothing to do with Roach or this assignment. “There's a pig farm we own a few miles out, we'll take them there.”

“Oh, okay.” Roach pushed Flora through the door and was gone.

“Grab his arm. We'll drag him out.” The Serbian shifted to the side to put the saw down on the counter, he knew he was going to need both hands to wrestle me out the door. Deadweight was a son of a bitch to move, and I sure as hell wasn't about to make it easy for these guys.

When the other biker began to hoist me up, I grabbed the thick bottle of Jim Beam under the table and smashed him in the face with it. The first blow shattered his nose, his face became a stream of red and salty tears.

With the second hit, I caught him in the front teeth, bashing at least four of them down his throat and knocking him on his ass.

“Mother fucker!” The Serbian whirled, drawing his gun.

Dropping the bottle, I rolled over and hooked the large man's leg with my arm, then wrenched it out from under him. Dexterity wasn't his strong suit; he tumbled, hitting the floor like a fallen tree. The Serbian was far from incapacitated. All I had really done was just bring him to the ground, and he still had his gun.

I bounced up to my feet and grabbed the nearest weapon I could find.

The bone saw.

He brought his weapon around to shoot me, but I was just a second faster; I kicked it wide. Wrenching my shoulders, I brought the saw down on top of him. It wasn't plugged in, but it didn't need to be. The heavy base tapered off into a narrow shaft that held a circular blade. It was basically a hammer with a thick razor blade for a head.

I split his skull open, just above the forehead, like it was tissue paper.

Letting go of the makeshift weapon, I stood back up to process the full brutality of what had just happened. It was then that I heard the front door get kicked open. I had just enough time to pry the gun from the Serbian's hand when the biker on watch burst into the kitchen. He took in the grisly scene in one glance, wasting no time opening up on me.

I dove for the only cover in the room, the table we'd had breakfast on, dropping stomach first into the prone position. The bullets trailed me to the floor, easily punching through the flimsy metal that was the only thing between the shooter and myself. I wish I could've claimed otherwise, but it was pure luck that none of them hit me.

“Goran... Goran, are you... awe fuck!” he cried out, rounding the small table. I laid perfectly still as he darted past me, taking for granted that he'd put me down and that I was no longer a threat.

“Branch?” he asked nervously. “Jesus, what the fuck happened here?”

Branch, the second biker, emphatically tried to speak, but couldn't stop choking on his own teeth and blood to get out anything intelligible. He tried to hawk up shattered fragments of bone, but to no avail. Coughing up a small, trickling pool of red bile and saliva, he doubled over and fixed a hateful glare on me.

The latecomer finally followed Branch's eyeline to find me lying on my back, pointing the Serbian's gun directly at him. “Just relax,” I said. “Let's not do anything stup—”

Before I could finish, the final biker jerked his arm up and tried to shoot me. I flat-out had the advantage and put three rounds in his chest. His own twisting motion corkscrewed him, he hit the floor on his back. His white shirt pooled red, it looked like wet, mid spring roses were blooming across his chest.

“That is not how you relax, friend.” I sighed, sharply taking in air. “The opposite, in fact.” I let my head tap lightly against the floor for about a half a second before I remembered that Flora was still outside with Roach.

Scurrying up to my feet again, I bolted towards the back door, hoping I wasn't too late. My mind spun to dark places immediately. After all of that, finding Flora with her head blown off... What a fucking tragic event that would be.

A shuffling sound behind me stopped me cold. I turned, finding Branch, the one that was choking on his own teeth, struggling to get his gun out. He'd landed on top of it when he fell and was too disoriented to get a good grip.

I shot him in the heart without a second thought.

The morality of outright murder didn't so much as slow me down. Besides, I knew what they really came here for. They didn't deserve any better.

I ran for the door.

The wood nearly exploded from the impact of my charging shoulder, but my focus was so singularly narrowed that I barely even felt it. With my eyes locked dead ahead, I spotted them right away.

Roach had Flora kneeling down in front of him, probably because he'd seen too many mafia movies and thought that that was how an execution was done.

He spotted me, fear puckering his tight lips. “Ronin, wait!” The human reptile slunk around behind Flora, trying to use her as a shield. Being that I was the only one to walk out of that building after the gun shots, he'd pieced together what must have happened. “They forced me—”

I put a bullet through Roach's eyebrow.

I'd had to take the shot while I still had it. The more time that passed, the higher chance of Flora getting hurt. I didn't like to kill, but Roach crossed a line—several really—and nothing he could've said would have changed that outcome, so I skipped to the end.

Flora screamed once at the noise, then again when the body fell on top of her. I'd never broken the momentum from my initial run, I was next to her in seconds. Her whole body was shaking from shock and fright as I helped her out from under what was left of Roach.

I quickly looked her over to make sure she wasn't wounded. Aside from some bruising, which stood out on her moon-glow skin, and a few cuts and scrapes, she looked physically fine. It wasn't anything I couldn't patch up.

The inspection complete, Flora abruptly hugged me tighter than anyone ever had. We were both spattered in other people's blood, but it didn't matter.

In that moment, I had her...

And she was safe.

I wanted to console her, to tell her that it was all over now, that everything would be alright. But I didn't want to lie to her. The cold truth of it, was that everything would not be alright.

Under no circumstances would the Knights be willing to let either of us live after what went down today. I'd lost my leverage, and Flora had lost the path to her sister. Not to mention that we were still in hostile territory, and news about my club cutting me lose was just about to break.

Soon, every shit-heel and scumbag would know that I'd lost my protection. I was fair game.

So was anyone stupid enough to be caught with me.

I need to get the fuck out of Dodge, and Flora...

I rested my head on top of hers, breathed her in for what I was sure was the last time. She needed to get as far away from me as possible.

No, everything was most certainly not fine.

We were fucked.

Flora

––––––––

I
'd never seen a man die before.

Once, when I was about six years old, I'd attended a funeral for my grandmother. I hadn't known her well, she'd been bed ridden for my entire young life. The day we'd gone to pay our respects, I'd looked over her perfumed, chemical soaked body in wonder.

Her eyes were shut, lips painted in a dead smile. I'd known, small as I was, that she was gone forever. It had led to an understanding that someday I, too, would lie there in a coffin with a false smile and yellow skin.

Death hadn't been scary. Not then.

Now... now, I was terrified.

“Flora?”

A gritty voice spoke my name. He was insistent, arms crushing me in a hug that was meant to hold me together so I didn't crumble over into fragile insanity. My ears were whistling, skin numb as my brain tried to flee what had just happened.

I was almost murdered, just... erased. Right here, right under the sun.
The grass beneath my feet was rust colored. How could plants look so sinister? Realizing my cheeks were wet, I reached up in surprise. I didn't remember crying.

When my fingertips came back crimson, I knew I hadn't been.

“
Flora
.”

That time I looked up, staring into Ronin's searching eyes. There was an intensity deep in his face, shadows at the bottom of the Earth's darkest ravine. I knew what concern looked like, but to have it aimed at me... and from
him...
the disbelief ate away at my trauma.

Ronin took my hand, scrubbing it with a handkerchief he'd pulled from his back pocket. “Are you alright?” he asked, moving to clean my face. I flinched, but didn't pull away. Knowing that he was removing the gore on my skin—the remnants of Roach, the man who had sold me out—made me shiver.

It also made me remember.

“You really were trying to save me.” My words were a whisper, but he heard me. His body tensed, then he stepped backwards. “The Knights were going to kill me. Like I was nothing.” Hot rage boiled, pushing my voice to a fever pitch. “I wasn't going to fight them! I would have gone along, done whatever they wanted so I could get to my sister, but they didn't care. I was as good as trash to them, wasn't I?”

He flicked his eyes downwards. “No. You were just a loose end. The Knights know that loose ends get tied off, or else they get long enough to hang a man.”